What happened to the binoculars ability for the command squad

I was just curious since looking back into earlier threads of the mod, I found that the CS had a binoculars ability, but in this current patch no such thing exists.  What was this ability about, what did it do?  What was the requirements?  Why was it removed?etc.

Last edited December 26, 2012 at 11:05 PM by 132

Well, the binos basicly was a spotting skill. You used it to reveal an area close to the command squad.

No idea why it was removed though, guess it was unnecessary.

The Balance Team thought it didn't need it IIRC. So we removed it.

The binocular ability removed the fog of war for a significant distance at the cost of immobilizing the Command squad. IIRC this makes artillery fire a bit more accurate. I sometimes think balancing suggestions have been made, not because of any imbalance but because particular abilities or features of various units are irrelevant to the play style of the particular balancers requesting the change at any given time. There has sometimes been an attitude "this or that ability isn't needed or otherwise duplicates a similar ability of another squad... lets get rid of it". This is unfortunate. The binocular/FOW ability for CS should be re-evaluated by the current crop of balancers for their input.

I also noticed this was gone and about time not only was it unrealistic it was a bit OP as well

Yeah it would be cool if the binos was tweaked so that:
*Major needs to be alive to use ability
*The ability would be targeted, so a small patch around that area would be able to see(instead of increasing the sight radius)
*Squad is immobile
*Must cost 35 munitions
*REQUIRES vet 2